Hire a housecleaner. Find an organisation or person that you trust and set up a fortnightly or monthly clean. Some house cleaning services also offer laundry and ironing services.Get an accountant. You have to lodge a tax return but you don’t have to fill out the form yourself. Your accountant’s knowledge of the taxation system will almost certainly enable you to get a higher refund than if you do it yourself.
Set up all your bills to be paid by direct debit. Electricity, gas, telephone, rent, mortgage, credit card (opt to pay either the full amount or the minimum amount monthly) – most organisations will be more than happy to help you set this up. Do check your bank statements, though, to ensure that no unexpected debits arise.
Everything must have a place. Organisation is simple if there is a designated place to put everything. If you don’t have a designated place that’s when piles of undifferentiated papers and junk accumulate. Set up a system to deal with your incoming papers – use a filing cabinet, or a series of coloured folders and purchase a label-maker so that you can readily identify each file or folder.
Label one of your files “Tax 08-09”; this is the file you put all your receipts for tax-deductible expenses in, so you can readily locate them at tax time. Label another “Salary Packaging” – this is where you put all your receipts for meals expenses, so that you can find them when you go through and periodically submit them (NB if you can consistently use a salary packaging credit card you will save yourself this hassle).Deal with items that come into your email inbox immediately wherever possible, then either delete the file or move it to an appropriately labeled file (‘friends’, ‘conferences’, ‘VMWS’). Leave emails that you haven’t dealt with in your inbox until you deal with them – you’ll be reminded of the outstanding tasks whenever you open your inbox.
Organise your wardrobe so that you can readily access clothes that you wear. Buy hangers that combine a coat hanger with a trouser/skirt hanger and then put a complete outfit on each hanger. This way when you get up in the morning you don’t have to search through multiple drawers to find items that match.
Buy multiples of consumables that you use regularly. This may include toilet rolls (buy a stylish toilet roll holder to streamline toilet-roll replacement and purchasing), pantyhose/ stockings, UHT milk, postage stamps, toothbrushes, toothpaste, razors and tampons (although if you use a reusable menstrual cup or sponge the latter may not apply to you). Of course, you have to have a designated place where these stores go, or else you risk filling your shelves with “more junk”.
Purchase items of clothing in multiples. If you buy multiple white shirts, black shoes, socks, and items of underwear you’ll be able to go longer between laundry loads and you won’t have to go clothes shopping so often. Make sure that you’re buying something that fits when you buy more than one and purchase slightly different styles where possible.
Don’t hem your own pants. There are plenty of tailors who will do this for a fee. Give them your business.
Buy an external HDD and set up a regular back-up for your computer. If you use Windows, go to Control Panel, then Performance and Maintenance, then Scheduled Tasks. Schedule your computer to start an automatic back-up every week, fortnight or month to make sure that you don’t lose all your data if your computer dies.
Don’t cook an extravagant meal if you can buy takeaway or eat out. If you can salary package meals expenses it’s relatively inexpensive to eat out or buy takeaway.
Ensure that nearly all the containers in your kitchen are see-through. If you can’t see what’s stored in the fridge there’s a higher chance it will grow mouldy before you get to it.
Buy a printer that has scanner and copier functions. If you have the technological facilities to scan and email a document this will make your life easier. Having the ability to copy a document (eg your Medical Registration) will save you from having to either keep a copy on hand or cart the original around when you need to provide a copy. Purchasing a scanner with a document feeder will allow you to scan multi-page documents quickly and easily, cutting down on paper filing.
